Letters to the Editor for July 23, 2014

Star-Banner readers discuss what the St. Johns River Water Management District should do next, some criticism of "fair tax" proposals, the realities of immigration, and more.

Water grabsNow that the St. Johns River Water Management District has finally decided that the Sleepy Creek/Adena Springs’ request for water is simply too great to grant, how about letting them get some real backbone and terminating and/or modifying some of these other large water grabs that they have so freely dispensed in the past? What’s good for one private enterprise should also be good for another, and just because that’s the way it used to be doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way. Show some spine and get serious if you really care about saving our water.Bob MiklerOcala

FairTax fraud threatRegarding Sunday’s opinion article on the FairTax (“FairTax would never live up to the hype”), let me add a couple of points:Under the current system, most income is disclosed (and taxed) under a duplicate reporting system. That is, your wages, investments, pensions, etc., are reported by the companies or agencies that pay you. Almost all of this information is transmitted and analyzed by computers. You also report your income on your tax return. If your numbers don’t match what’s been reported by third parties, you get a (computer-generated) letter advising you that you may owe additional tax and perhaps interest and penalties.Computers are cheap to operate, and the system is minimally invasive. Under the FairTax, only businesses collecting the sales tax would report their receipts. The potential for fraud under a single-reporter system is enormous. The IRS would have to hire thousands of additional agents to investigate and audit virtually every business in the nation to ensure that the sales taxes were in fact being collected and paid. Kiss your privacy good-bye.If lower-income workers suddenly find themselves subject to a 23 percent sales tax — much more than they pay under the current system — they will create a demand for a black market in which no sales tax is collected, similar to the current market in illegal drugs and stolen goods. Otherwise law-abiding citizens will become criminals. And because legitimate businesses would be subject to much greater government scrutiny, far fewer people would be inclined to start legitimate businesses. Kiss your economy good-bye.I could go on, but that’s enough for now. The FairTax is not “simple.” It’s simple-minded. Mercifully, it has absolutely no chance of enactment.Fran RussellOcklawaha

Immigration realitiesRegarding the letter “A solution at the border” on Sunday, the writer berates Americans for the “rabid wave of anti-immigrant fever” and for defiling our great tradition of welcoming the “tired ... poor ... huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He accuses Christians of being xenophobic and blatantly racist. In addition, he charges America with causing the violence these children are fleeing.Strangely enough, the writer believes there are not enough children in America. We lack enough younger workers to take the place of retiring baby boomers, therefore these children will fill jobs left by those baby boomers, and our budget problems will be solved. Hello, what?We have always had immigration laws for a reason. Those immigrants who built the country came here legally. They had to apply, and they waited patiently to be approved before they sailed for our shores. They did not arrive and immediately become a burden to taxpayers.Would this writer approve of open borders with people flooding in from all over the world with no restrictions? How many people can fit in the boat before it sinks?The charge of “anti-immigrant fever” is ridiculous — at best divisive and destructive at worst. Opposition is to immigrants entering America illegally, i.e., not in compliance with U.S. law. What about this eludes people? I read Tuesday that some of these migrant children will be placed in foster care. As if there aren’t enough problems with foster care, especially here in Florida. Will “a solution at the border” be fostering some of these children?Sharon S. EdwardsOcala

Manchurian candidateMartin Luther King famously said, “Don’t judge a man by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.” But if you judge President Barack Obama by the content of his character, you are immediately accused of judging him by the color of his skin and called a racist.When Sen. Mitch McConnell said, “We need to insure that Barack Obama is a one-term president,” he wasn’t talking about the color of his skin; he was talking about the content of his character. He had listened intently to Obama’s campaign speeches, especially his “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America,” and he knew then what Obama had in store for this country.Obama has methodically gone out of his way to destroy this nation using a very simple plan. You weaken the military — and he has done that by cutting military spending. You create massive national debt — he has increased the debt 41 percent since taking office. Obamacare — if you take control of the people’s health care you then have control of the people. He has dramatically increased the nation’s welfare rolls, making millions more people dependent on the government for everything. And finally, collapse the infrastructure by allowing tens of thousands of children to illegally cross the border creating a humanitarian disaster.Result? Once the government has control of everything, we the people become we the sheep, exactly what George Soros expected from his “Manchurian candidate.”Dennis P. BirdsallRainbow Springs